50th Oral History Association Conference

The SOHA session Capturing Our Community’s Voice with Multidisciplinary Approaches at the 50th Oral History Association Conference featured Orange County directors Kevin Cabrera, Jennifer Keil, and Tram Le. This roundtable was chaired by Dr. Tram Le from University of California, Irvine. We discussed how to use community events to start and maintain oral history projects. We apply multidisciplinary approaches to the field. We extend our projects’ network by inviting other groups such as artists, actors, videographers, and journalists to collaborate by asking for their expertise. In order to enhance the narrators’ voices, we curate exhibits that emphasize these everyday perspectives.

One can access the Vietnamese American Oral History Project at the University of California, Irvine collection via their website, http://sites.uci.edu/vaohp/ where their collection is transcribed and translated. One can attend the UCI Spring Exhibit Opening Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the Southeast Asian Archive, which will be held on May 16, 2017. For more information, visit news.lib.uci.edu. The UCI Libraries are also exhibiting Our Majestic Lands: California’s National Parks which will be on display through June 2017.

The Heritage Museum of Orange County in Santa Ana oral history collection can be accessed in person by visiting their archive. They have partnered with Orange County Historical Society which offers an array of collections that is open the last Saturday of every month from 10:00a.m.-2:00p.m. They are now offering bilingual tours of their nature walks through their Volunteer Naturalist Program. The exhibit America’s Favorite Past Time will be opening in 2017. Visit heritagemuseumoc.org for more information.

The Balboa Island Museum in Newport Beach is partnering with the Orange County Historical Commission to participate in the Uncovering Hidden Histories in Orange County which will be held on June 10, 2017 from 10:00a.m.-2:00p.m. at the Irvine Ranch Historic Park. This community event will provide resources to people working on family and local history. It will specifically educate the public about how to conduct oral histories. History organizations are welcome to participate at no cost. They should contact Heather Glasgow at 714-973-6610 or heather.glasgow@ocparks.com by May 1st. Jennifer and Cindy Keil will also be presenting at the 2017 SOHA conference on Thursday, April 27th on “Digital Oral History Methodology” which will review their process on starting two community projects.

Oral History Review

The Oral History Review publishes narrative and analytical articles and reviews, in print and multimedia formats, that present and use oral history in unique and significant ways and that contribute to the understanding of the nature of oral history and memory.

The Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) is proud to offer for the first time a day-long "Doing Oral History" workshop from 9am-5pm on November 13 in Baltimore, Maryland as part of the AMIA 2019 conference schedule! "Doing Oral History” will provide training in each of the core areas of this important documentation method.